Nanaimo

Have you had a situation where a recipe looked great on paper but was a total disaster when you got around to making it. I have an exact reverse with this year's first daring bakers challenge. Nanaimo bars are a Canadian treat I heard about the first time when Lauren announced the challenge. The overly sweet three-layer bars had everyone in a tizzy but I just couldn't see what the deal was. In fact, I thought they were boring. Until this morning, a day late, I put the final layer together and cut one piece of my round nanaimo pie to dig into. And oh my goodness! they are so so good.

The January 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. Lauren chose Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bars as the challenge for the month. The sources she based her recipe on are 101 Cookbooks and www.nanaimo.ca.

Step one of the challenge was making graham wafers. Lauren would have preferred us to make them gluten free, but she allowed us to use wheat flour if we liked and that's what I did. This was three days back. I made the crackers, I loved them and crushed them into crumbs to make nanaimos. Then, life happened and this morning was the first chance I got to put it all together.

And it wasn't as scary as it sounded. In fact, it wasn't scary at all. You melt some butter, sugar and cocoa. Then, you beat in an egg but Aparna said to use flax seeds instead and it worked like a dream. In this bowl, you mix your graham cracker crumbs, chopped almonds and coconut. This goes into the pie plate (or a square dish if you insist on bars, you boring person!) pressed as a first layer.

As the first layer chills in the fridge, you beat together butter, cream, custard powder and LOTS of sugar for the second layer. Spreading layers isn't one of my skills but with a huge number of spoons, knives and spatulas I managed it somehow. This goes into the fridge to harden.

Then you melt some butter and chocolate and pour over the final layer. In the fridge for half an hour to set. And that's it!

They are overly sweet so don't you dare eat a lot at one time. But keep them in the freezer and they are going to last you through anytime you need a quick sugar and chocolate fix.